Читать книгу Make Her Wish Come True Collection - Ann Lethbridge - Страница 24

Chapter One

December 1813

Adam Royston St Vire, Viscount Graystone and heir to the Earl of Portmaine, squeezed the bridge of his nose and once more applied himself to the column of figures in the dusty old ledger. Again his vision blurred. The linenfold panelling darkened by age, the dingy carpet and old oak furniture seemed to swallow what little winter sunshine filtered through the library’s mullioned window. Perhaps another candle would help.

Stiff from the lack of warmth in this benighted old manor house, despite the blazing fire he’d lit, he arched his back and stretched his cramped hand. The ledgers told a sorry tale. Old Cousin Josiah had neglected Thornton for years. A large investment was needed to bring it up to scratch and even then… Portmaine had no need of such a drain on its coffers. A quick sale was what he would recommend to his father.

He rubbed at his nape. Paperwork. He hated it.

The old restlessness seized him. He eyed the brandy bottle he’d picked up with other supplies on his way through the local village the previous day. Brandy would not help him complete his task more quickly, even if it did dull his urge to move on. His duty, to his father and to the estate, required that he finish this up before going home for Christmas.

The thought of home, of being the subject of sympathetic eyes and concerned faces, made his stomach curl in on itself. Worse yet would be the matchmaking efforts made by his mother. She’d written, warning him of the young lady and her family invited for the holidays. He didn’t blame his mother for her stratagems to see him leg-shackled once more. She didn’t understand that he was perfectly content to leave the business of providing the next Portmaine heir to one of his younger brothers. Marriage was out of the question.

Damn it all, he did not want to think about his dead wife. It hurt too much. Especially at this time of year. Marion had loved Christmas. She’d loved life. And had he been a better husband, paid attention to his duty, she would have lived to enjoy this one.

Anger and regret churned vilely in his stomach. It always did when he allowed thoughts of Marion to slip into his mind. His fingers clenched around his pen. The urge to hurl it across the room had his hand trembling. He dipped it in the inkwell instead, forcing his mind back to Sir Josiah’s account books.

Figures never let him down. They always did exactly as required. If they weren’t right, they could be fixed. Unlike people. He peered at the crabbed line of explanations beside each number and grimaced. At least the mess Cousin Josiah had left him provided a reasonable excuse to put off his return to Portmaine for a few days longer. He began tallying the column again.

‘You do it,’ a high-pitched voice said right outside the window that looked over the sweep of drive.

‘No, you. It was your idea. And you are the oldest.’

Female voices of the cultured sort. Too young to pose any sort of matrimonial threat, thank the sweet heavens.

The doorbell clanged.

He ignored it. Since Josiah’s servants had been pensioned off—all but the stable boy—and Adam had sent his own man home for the holidays, there was no one to answer the door. He certainly wasn’t expecting visitors. The solicitor who had given him the key had asked if Adam wanted to hire a housekeeper or some such from the nearby village, but he’d declined, given the shortness of his planned stay.

The doorbell pealed again. Not deterred, then. He sighed, rose to his feet and headed into the chilly cave of the entrance hall. He pulled the door open at the same moment the taller of two young females reached for the bell. She lurched into his belly with a cry of alarm.

He steadied her, set her back on her feet and glared down. ‘What do you want?’

The smaller child disappeared behind her elder, peeping out and up at him with large blue eyes framed by pale lashes.

The elder, a rosy-cheeked brunette with her chin lost in a blue knitted scarf, whom he judged to be about the age of ten, put mittened hands on small hips. ‘We want to see his lordship.’ Her breath puffed out from her lips in a frosty mist.

How had they discovered his presence at Thornton House? He glared harder. ‘And who is it who wants to see his lordship?’ he growled.

The little one disappeared again, but the older girl drew herself up straight like a soldier on parade. He couldn’t help but admire her fortitude. There wasn’t a groom in his stables who didn’t falter when he was in what they called one of his moods.

‘I am Miss Lucy Melford, and this is my sister, Diana.’ She spoke carefully, as if she had learned the words by rote yet needed to think about them. ‘We wish to see Lord Graystone on a very important matter, if you would be pleased to announce us.’

An odd feeling rose in his throat. His lips twitched with the urge to smile at this small package of self-importance. She reminded him of his sisters at that age, appearing as brave as lions when they were terrified. He hunkered down, bringing himself to eye level with the imperious little baggage. ‘His lordship isn’t at home.’

Miss Melford turned to her sibling. ‘They say that when they don’t want to see anyone.’

Miss Diana whispered from her place of safety, ‘I told you we shouldn’t come.’

Adam couldn’t resist. ‘Why did you?’

The elder young lady regarded him thoughtfully, probably trying to decide if he was an ally or a foe. ‘We have an important question to ask.’

‘Lucy! Diana!’ a breathless female voice called out.

Adam rose to his six foot four inches and regarded the third female hurrying up his drive towards him. An adult female in a drab-looking pelisse of some indeterminate brown colour and a faded black bonnet, which was about all he could see of her as she watched where she placed her feet on the snow-covered drive. Amusement fled. Gads, he should have known little girls would come accompanied by older versions. Governesses and mothers and such. Dangerous territory for a man alone, single and planning to stay that way.

He began to close the door as she arrived alongside the children.

The governess, or whatever she was, looked up, a frown on her face. ‘Girls. I told you not to bother his lordship.’

Adam’s breath caught in his throat. Because she was…so unexpectedly young. No one would describe her face, with cheeks deliciously flushed by the chill December air, as pretty. Her nose was too aquiline, her mouth too generously wide, for ordinary beauty. But she had the most remarkably luminous hazel eyes he had ever seen. Wide set and intelligent and expressive, they took in the tableau at the door with dismay. Her frown deepened. Her lips pursed. A very prim and proper lady, then, whom others might call unfortunately tall. Not him. It was rare that he met a woman he topped by only a few inches. Statuesque with a lush bountiful figure, he found her utterly carnally tempting. Shocked by his ungentlemanly thoughts, he forced himself to fix his gaze upon her face.

‘Girls, you were wrong to go against my wishes,’ she said, her expression becoming severe. ‘Come away this instant.’

‘But, Mama, he is going to ask his lordship,’ Miss Melford said. ‘You were, weren’t you?’

Mama? How was that possible? She could not possibly be old enough to be a mother to these children.

He looked from the mother to the small serious faces staring up at him. ‘It depends on your question.’ Devil take it, did he have to sound quite so surly?

‘Please, do not trouble his lordship,’ Mrs Melford said, breathing hard from her dash up the drive, a circumstance resulting in a most pleasing expansion and contraction of the brown pelisse in the region of her chest.

Again Adam dragged his gaze back to her face and saw consternation lurking in those beautiful eyes fringed with lashes the colour of guineas. Strands of the same coloured hair had managed to escape in little tendrils around her oval face.

‘And you are?’ she said with a lift of delicately arched brows.

For a moment he frowned, then he realised the import behind her question and its tone. She thought him a servant. As did the little girls. They had no idea to whom they spoke. And no wonder. He had answered the door in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat. Something no gentleman would do. But then he wasn’t much of a gentleman these days.

‘Royston.’ Almost without thinking, he gave his mother’s maiden name as he often did when he travelled on estate business. Self-defence against toadies and matchmaking mamas.

The woman hesitated. ‘Cassandra Melford. Please give my apologies to Lord Graystone for the disturbance.’

A proud woman despite her air of genteel poverty. The unexpected spark of interest deep inside him flared higher. ‘Why don’t I ask his lordship your question, so he can decide if it is a trouble or not?’

‘We wanted to ask if his lordship would permit us to cut some Christmas boughs in his woods.’ Miss Lucy spoke quickly, before her mama could forbid another word, sly little puss. She waved an arm off to the right where Adam had noticed a formidable expanse of deciduous forest. ‘And perhaps, if we just happened to find a log—by chance, you understand—we could bring it home for the holidays.’ She smiled and he could see a gap where an incisor used to be.

Miss Diana peeped around her sister and removed a finger from between rosebud lips. ‘There is—’

‘Hush,’ Miss Lucy said.

Clearly the child had already located the log of her choice.

‘Girls, it is not right for us to trespass in his lordship’s woods,’ their mama said softly, as if to ease the blow of her words. ‘I am sure we can find some greenery in the hedgerows. I promised you we would go tomorrow. And Mr Harkness might have a log left at the end of the day we can…purchase.’ How telling was that little stumble. Money was a problem. She smiled apologetically, a smile that transformed her face from stern to warmly charming. ‘I am so sorry we bothered you, Mr Royston.’

The sadness in her eyes, despite her brave smile, was painful to see. Adam did his best not to see it. He was no knight in shining armour.

‘Wait here, while I ask.’ Blazes, now what was he doing?

Mrs Melford looked ready to refuse.

‘I’ll be but a moment.’ He closed the door, castigating himself for his deceit. Yet, strangely, he found it pleasant to converse with a woman who was not my lording him all over the place. Or sympathising. Or simpering and batting her eyelashes.

‘He said to wait,’ Miss Lucy said, her high voice piercing.

A small silence.

‘He just closed the door. He didn’t go anywhere,’ little Miss Diana announced, clearly hard up against the other side of the door. Listening.

Another odd twitch of his mouth he recognised as the beginnings of a rusty smile on lips tight from lack of practice.

He crept a few feet up the hall, not quite believing his idiocy, and stomped back to open the door, only to discover Mrs Melford in the throes of dragging her daughters away.

He followed them a few steps down the snow-covered drive and raised his voice. ‘His lordship has one condition. I must go with you. He can spare me tomorrow afternoon.’ He should be done with his paperwork by then, but it would be too late to set out for Portmaine Court and arrive before dark. Though why he was even thinking of doing this—perhaps because the girls reminded him of his younger sisters whom he rarely saw. Or perhaps it was his curiosity about the woman.

‘No, thank you,’ Mrs Melford said stiffly.

‘Mama,’ Miss Lucy pleaded, her eyes big and sad.

‘I meant you also, Mrs Melford,’ Adam said, at once realising the difficulty of a stranger accompanying two little girls anywhere. ‘And Mr Melford, too, of course.’

The woman tensed. ‘There is no Mr Melford.’

A widow. Now why did that lift his spirits when he should be expressing regret?

‘Bring whomsoever you wish,’ he said. ‘But his lordship insists I accompany you.’

‘We won’t steal anything,’ Miss Lucy said indignantly.

Adam shrugged, feigning surly indifference, when he felt anything but indifferent. ‘Won’t you need help with the log? Unless you have a servant to assist?’ Which from the condition of their patched and worn clothing he very much doubted.

Clearly torn, Mrs Melford gazed at the hopeful faces of her children. She heaved the small sigh of the beleaguered parent; he’d heard enough from his own to recognise it as defeat. ‘Tomorrow, then. At two.’

‘Where do I find you?’ he asked.

She looked surprised and then flustered. ‘Ivy Cottage. We are his lordship’s tenants.’

‘Ivy Cottage?’

‘A little way along the lane between here and the village.’ She took her daughters’ hands and walked away. For all its mud-coloured ugliness, the skirts of her pelisse swayed from her generous hips in a most pleasing manner. He stilled. His blood hadn’t warmed to the back view of a woman in years. And nor should it be doing so now. The woman was his father’s tenant. She deserved more respect. And clearly, she was not that sort of woman. While she might be a widow, she was also most definitely a lady.

He closed the door. Ivy Cottage? He didn’t recall any rent-paying tenants anywhere on this blasted benighted property.

Twenty-five beeswax candles. Cassie stepped back to admire the fruits of her labours hanging from their racks. Hers and those of the wonderful little creatures who had also given them jars and jars of honey. Who would have thought a childhood interest could have kept them from the brink of disaster? Her throat felt a little too full. The prickle at the back of her eyes just a little too painful.

Sir Josiah St Vire had been a kindly old man and had professed a love of honey in his tea, her particular honey. The white clover that grew so well in this area gave it its delicate flavour. If this new landlord would also take honey and candles in lieu of rent as his predecessor had, they might survive another twelve months. His servant, Mr Royston, was certainly not a friendly sort. He’d practically frightened poor little Diana out of her shoes. He’d regarded Cassie herself as if he was Red Riding Hood’s big bad wolf ready to gobble her up.

Her face heated. Oh, no. Not another blush. As she had told herself the previous afternoon, the look in his eyes had not been appreciation. Young men never gave her a second glance once they’d taken in her towering height and homely features. The heat in Mr Royston’s expression had been annoyance at being thwarted.

When it came to women, it was her experience that men wanted everything their own way. Women were simply bargaining chips in their games of power. And when things did not go as planned, they turned unpleasant and vindictive. As her brother had, when she refused her first offer of marriage. He’d painted a pretty ugly picture of her future as his dependant. And as her husband had, when he discovered that even an earl could not guarantee his precious son the entry into polite society he wanted. No woman should trust a man to use his power wisely.

As a widow, she had the freedom to make her own decisions, to choose her own course of action. And she had managed very nicely, too.

She peered into the bottom of the tin pot standing in hot water over the fire in the little lean-to stable the girls had come to call her potting shed. Enough wax remained for a few small moulded candles and then her supply would be finished.

‘Good afternoon,’ a beautifully modulated male voice said.

She jumped and turned around. ‘Mr Royston?’

Looming. Over her. Her recollections had not played her false. In this small space, the man was disconcertingly tall and uncomfortably wide across the shoulders. He made her feel small, almost dainty. A most disconcerting sensation. He stared around him with obvious curiosity. While his face was too rugged to be called handsome in the common way, she was once again struck silly by his fierce manly beauty. She was also surprised to discover that the eyes she’d thought dark were a striking shade of emerald. Her stomach gave a jolt.

She bristled against the strange reaction. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Are you ready?’

Her glance flew to the clock on the mantel. It wanted two minutes to two. Dash it, she had lost track of the hours. She had promised the girls she would return to the cottage well before the appointed time of their outing. ‘I won’t be but a moment. We will meet you in the lane.’ Not exactly polite, but she was a single female and did not want any misunderstandings.

He ignored her hint, strolling around like a predator looking for prey, or the representative of a landlord looking for signs of neglect. Hands behind his back, he stared at the racks of candles suspended above his head. ‘So those are your hives in the lower meadow.’

Not a question. ‘Sir Josiah gave me permission.’ Oh, dear sweet periwinkles, if the new owner refused permission to use the field, she would need a new home for her bees. No easy matter, when he owned all of the land within walking distance. ‘I paid for the privilege in candles and honey. He thought the bees helpful for his orchards.’

Royston met her gaze with a frown. ‘Are these for your own use?’

As if she could afford such luxury. She lifted her chin. ‘Mr Driver sells the remainder of the candles and honey at the market in town.’

‘Hmm.’ He gave her a considering look. ‘Should we be going?’

She blinked at his rapid change of topic and brusque tone. ‘First I must remove the pot from the hearth and bank the fire.’

‘Allow me.’

Before she could protest, he had intruded himself between her and the fire and swung the crane clear of the dying embers.

Silently she handed him the rag she used as a pot holder.

‘Where do you want it?’ he asked, lifting the container with ease.

‘Outside to cool. I will deal with it later.’

He despatched the task quickly, while she untied her apron. Only to discover the tapes had become knotted somewhere in the small of her back.

After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped closer and once again she was aware of his impressive height and breadth. ‘Can I help?’ He pulled off his gloves to reveal large male hands, elegant hands, and not at all work roughened, like hers. A gentleman’s gentleman did not engage in rough work like gardening and candle-making.

She must either give him her permission or she must cut the ties and be forced to mend them later. She turned her back. ‘Thank you.’

Warmth radiated from him as his fingers busied at her back. Her insides fluttered each time his hands brushed against her gown. She forced herself to stand passively while he teased at the knot.

‘There,’ he said, stepping back.

She turned with a smile. ‘Thank you.’ Her breath caught in her throat at the intensity of his gaze. A veiled glance that took in not only her face, but her full length. Most men were usually intimidated by her height, but not this one apparently and her skin tingled with female awareness.

Brilliant green eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘Do you need help taking it off?’

Oh, mercy, she was standing here like some besotted schoolgirl instead of a widowed lady of a certain age. She slipped the apron strings over her head, only to have him take it from her hand.

He leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers. A whisper of a kiss that had fire racing up her face to her hair line and her feet stumbling backwards.

He caught her upper arms in those strong capable hands with a smile that dazzled.

Her heart fluttered wildly. Her hand went to her throat.

‘Steady, Mrs Melford,’ he said, his voice deep and rich with laughter. ‘We don’t want you tumbling into the fire.’ He released her the moment he ascertained she had her feet firmly beneath her.

As firm as they were going to be around this man, since her knees were still misbehaving after his kiss. ‘Mr Royston…’ she began severely. ‘You are not to take such liberties with my person. Indeed—’

He glanced upwards and she followed his gaze.

Saints preserve her, she’d been standing beneath a beribboned bouquet of mistletoe. So that was why the girls had been giggling when she caught them coming out of her shed this morning. Lucy must have climbed on a chair to tie it to the beam. Naughty girl.

He reached up and plucked a berry as tradition demanded, tucking it into his inside breast pocket.

Heavens, the man was wonderfully tall. The wind taken quite from her sails, she fought for words. ‘You will await me outside, sir,’ she said in her best reproving-the-children voice.

He bowed. ‘Certainly, ma’am.’

The moment he closed the door she sank down onto the stool and propped her forehead on her hand. What was wrong with her? Was she really so lonely, so needful of male company she would fall for the first man to give her so winsome a smile? She should never have accepted his offer to escort them.

She took a deep breath, damped down the fire and went outside. He wasn’t, thank heavens, standing outside her back door expecting her to invite him into her cottage. It would only need a villager passing by on the way to Padminton, their nearest town, for the same sort of gossip that had occurred when someone spotted Sir Josiah leaving her cottage to spring up all over again. She hurried indoors.

Adam swallowed a rueful laugh. Those little girls had caught him nicely when he knocked on the front door. He should have known the prim and starchy Mrs Melford would not have been part of a game to extract a kiss under the mistletoe. She hadn’t even known it was there. And yet he couldn’t regret the sweet contact of his lips with hers, the lovely scent of her, warm beeswax and roses. It was like summer on a wintery day.

He should apologise, but likely it would only make things worse. Besides, he did not feel sorry. Not the least little bit. He felt more aroused than he had for a very long time. Still, he had no business flirting with a respectable widow. One slip and he’d find himself being marched to the altar by her or by some ambitious relative.

Not that he suspected Mrs Melford of being some scheming chit on the hunt for a husband. Quite the opposite. She wasn’t worldly enough to have deliberately stood beneath a sprig of mistletoe expecting to be kissed. The woman blushed every time he spoke.

No, she was sweet and innocent and practically penniless. A charity case according to old Sir Josiah’s ledgers.

A darker thought intruded, one that had a pulse beating at his temple. Perhaps Mrs Melford was not an innocent after all. Perhaps it was another sort of payment her previous landlord had accepted in lieu of rent. Perhaps that was why she had blushed and looked uncomfortable.

If so, it was a good thing old Josiah had gone to his maker. He glowered at the cottage, contemplating men who took advantage of poverty-stricken gentlewomen.

The front door opened and Mrs Melford and her daughters emerged. Once again his gaze feasted on her gorgeously generous figure. The elegant turn of her neck beneath her ugly bonnet had him longing to taste that sliver of creamy skin. To feel the beat of her pulse against his tongue.

The devil! Had it been so long since taking a woman to his bed that he had lost all sense of decency? The woman deserved better. He forced himself to turn away, fiddling with Soldier’s bridle as if making an adjustment.

The little girls ran out of the garden gate and stopped when they saw the horse and cart. They gazed in puzzlement. ‘Are we going in that?’ Diana said. ‘We usually walk.’

‘It occurred to me that we might need help transporting the log.’

‘That’s Sir Josiah’s dog cart,’ Lucy said.

‘What a pretty horse,’ Diana said. ‘Can I drive?’

The pretty horse was his own mount. Sir Josiah’s carriage horses, while nice beasts, were likely to consider such a lowly task beneath them.

‘Not this time,’ he said. ‘There is only enough room for two up front. You and your sister must ride in the back and give directions. You will find a cushion or two back there for your comfort.’

‘It seems you have thought of everything,’ Mrs Melford said, helping Lucy up while he lifted Diana in.

Was she pleased about his perspicacity? Or not? It wasn’t easy to tell with Mrs Melford. He helped her in and climbed up beside her, clicking his tongue for Soldier to walk.

‘I did not mean to disturb your work this morning,’ he said by way of a peace offering, both for disturbing her work and perhaps just a little bit for the kiss. Only a very little.

‘I was finished.’

Taking him literally. As she should. No lady would acknowledge his teasing not-quite kiss. Though she perhaps should have slapped his face. Which made him think of something troubling, both to him as a man and as a brother. ‘Do you have family nearby?’ Some male relative responsible for the welfare of the ladies of this household.

‘Not that I think it is your business, Mr Royston, but I have no family to speak of.’

Not speaking of family did not mean one did not have any, it simply meant one didn’t intend to admit to them. ‘I am sorry,’ he said and meant it, because the likelihood of the next owner of Thornton keeping a tenant who paid no rent was highly doubtful.

‘Perhaps there is a suitor among the local gentlemen?’ A man who might rightly call him out for his wicked behaviour.

‘Marriage is the last thing I want. Never again will I put myself beneath a man’s thumb.’

He winced at her vehemence. Her marriage must have been unpleasant indeed. Stifling the urge to press her further, he brought the horse to the stand and handed off the reins to her. Soldier being the perfect gentleman, unlike the only other male present, waited patiently for him to open the gate to the field that gave way to the woods beyond. Adam leaped up and set the horse in motion once more.

‘Is your employer of a mind to reside at Thornton?’ she asked, as if sensing the direction of his earlier thoughts. He liked that about her. The way she reasoned and contemplated, even if it did lead to uncomfortable questions.

Part of him, the landlord part, wished he had given her his real name yesterday and closed the door. The other part, the male-on-the-prowl part, was glad she had looked adorably flustered and deliciously feminine on his doorstep—so unlike his usual female company—and had tempted him to fall in with her mistaken impression.

‘He won’t,’ he said.

‘You are very certain,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Perhaps he might offer it for lease?’

A case of straw-clutching if ever he’d heard one. He could try to let the house and the land, but who would be fool enough to rent Josiah’s mess of an estate when it required a significant investment to put it right? It would be unkind to get her hopes up only to dash them again. ‘He won’t.’

‘You are in his confidence, then?’

He hated how disappointed she sounded. ‘As the Earl of Portmaine’s land steward I am party to all such decisions.’ An accurate description of his duties on behalf of his father these past five years, so not exactly a lie even if it felt like one.

‘Mr Royston,’ Miss Lucy called out.

He turned in his seat. ‘How may I be of service, Miss Melford?’

She giggled at his formality. ‘Can you put me and Diana down so we can show you the way to the lovely holly tree we found? And the ivy.’

Perhaps there would also be mistletoe. He decided not to ask.

He jumped down and walked around the back. ‘Out you come, ladies.’

Once on the ground the girls set off at a trot while Soldier flicked his ears back and forth as if trying to decide if he was displeased by this new turn of events.

‘This way, Mr Royston,’ Miss Lucy called over her shoulder.

Fortunately, the path she chose was wide enough and the snow hardened enough by the cold these past few days to accommodate the horse and cart.

‘In view of Lord Graystone’s intent to sell, it is kind of him to allow us to raid his woods,’ Mrs Melford said, sounding disappointed.

Kind was not the correct word. Lustful. Deceitful. All of those suited the case much better.

‘I should thank him,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think? I would not be amiss in my courtesy.’

And then she would know what a deceitful lustful fellow he was.

‘His lordship left for home first thing this morning.’ Or he should have.

A frown furrowed her brow. ‘And yet you remain?’

‘Not for long. I have one more task to finish up and then I, too, will go.’

‘And you are positive he plans to put Thornton up for sale in the New Year?’

For a moment he wished he could ignore his duty to his father and the estate and let her stay. To what end? To make her like him more? To take advantage of her sweet nature? Oh, he really didn’t deserve her to look on him as any kind of saviour.

‘I am sorry,’ he said and was surprised by the genuine regret in his voice.